Chapter 9: Achievement Unlocked: Mild Confusion
"What does that mean?"
"Appearance sync?"
The answer came immediately.
All around, every player’s body flickered. Their forms shifted and changed as the system took over, reshaping and correcting them, bringing everyone back to their real selves.
Ellie flinched slightly as the effect passed over her, her body tightening instinctively before relaxing again just as quickly.
She blinked, looked down at herself. Then back up. "...that’s it?"
She turned slightly, checking her reflection in a nearby window, brushing her hand over her hair out of habit. Nothing had changed. Well, almost nothing. She shifted her weight, frowning slightly. "...did I get shorter? It was subtle. Maybe an inch. Barely noticeable. She huffed softly, half amused, half confused. "...okay, sure that was stupid, Liam, what did yo-"
She turned back toward Liam and instantly froze. Because Liam wasn’t Liam anymore. Not the one she knew in game, he was the one she knew, idolised, and loved secretly, in real life.
His body flickered, then grew bigger all at once, almost like fireworks going off. There was a pop as his armor cracked, the plates splitting apart because they were suddenly too small. His frame stretched and widened, no longer fitting the old proportions. The sharp sound of metal breaking filled the air as his shoulders grew broader. He stood taller, and his presence changed from small and awkward to something powerful.
Ellie froze.
Where moments ago there had been a small, quiet figure, now someone else entirely stood before her.
He was huge, standing at 6’6, with a build that looked too big for most rooms. He didn’t just stand still; he moved with a heavy, natural ease, the kind of strength you get from real work, not just lifting weights. His silver hair was messy, catching the light as he moved. His sharp red eyes kept scanning the area, not like a predator, but more like someone genuinely curious about everything.
Despite the hard angles of his jaw and the sheer size of his shoulders, there was a restless energy to him. He looked less like a finished masterpiece and more like a guy who was still figuring out where to put his hands. When he caught her looking, the "tough guy" exterior didn’t just slip; it evaporated. He broke into a massive, lopsided grin, the kind that reached his eyes and made him look like a big kid who’d just been caught doing something bad.
Ellie’s mind finally caught up. Her whole face turned red, not just a light blush, but all at once and intensely. She blurted out, "LIAM?" People nearby turned, but she didn’t care. "LIAM YOO?" Her voice cracked on his name. She stared at him, completely shocked, like reality had just broken. If reality had just broken.
Because she had.
"...uh," he said, his voice low and rough, sounding nothing like before. The sound made two people nearby glance over. He rubbed the back of his neck, then smiled again.
"Hi Elizabeth."
That only made it worse. Ellie had to step back, then took another step, still staring at him.
This was the guy from the ceremony. The one she watched from a distance, the one she wanted to talk to, the one every girl wanted to talk to. Even the teachers blushed when they saw him, and even the men. She had spent hours walking around with him, thinking he was someone else. Ellie covered her face with both hands. "...no," she muttered, her voice muffled and mortified ", no no no no no." Her mind replayed everything: calling him a child, patting his head, dragging him around, talking down to him. Her shoulders tensed, and her whole body froze. She slowly lowered her hands and looked at him again, still red, still shocked. "...you," she started, then stopped, then tried again, "you let me..."
She couldn’t even finish the sentence.
Liam tilted his head, looking confused but not embarrassed. He wasn’t bothered, just puzzled. "...you didn’t ask," he said simply. That didn’t help at all.
Ellie made a noise that was half groan, half choke, turning away as she tried to pull herself together, one hand still covering part of her face. Behind them, the crowd kept reacting, people shouted, laughed, some were shocked, some excited, and most yelled about suing... but none of it mattered to her now.
Right now, this felt much worse. She peeked at him for a second, then looked away.
"...you’re tall," she managed to whisper, looking up at him in disbelief.
Liam looked down at himself again. "...yeah," he said, as if just noticing.
And somehow, that made her blush harder.
Liam chuckled deeply and smiled again, then patted her head and said, "Guess you’re the little one now, huh?"
She glanced at him again, just enough to see him out of the corner of her eye. His broad shoulders, the way his chest filled out his black shirt, the fabric pulling a bit at the open collar. His white hair caught the light. His red eyes, calm and relaxed, looked over his own hands like he was checking for glitches.
Her stomach dropped.
She forced herself to look away, studying a random rock on the ground.
The rock didn’t help. She could smell him now, cedar, smoke, and something clean.
His hand was still on her head. He hadn’t moved it. He wasn’t even looking at her; he’d turned slightly, squinting at his own reflection in a shop window across the street, tilting his jaw like he was trying to figure out how his face worked now. Meanwhile, his thumb rested casually against the curve of her ear, and the pad of it was rough and ridiculously gentle at the same time, and she was going to combust.
She grabbed his wrist. Meant to shove it off. Didn’t shove it off.
Her fingers barely wrapped halfway around.
"Stop..." Her grip tightened. "Stop patting me."
He glanced down at her. Way down. The height difference was absurd. She used to stand nearly at the same level as his old avatar. Now the top of her head barely cleared his collarbone, and she had to tilt her chin up to meet his gaze.
"You patted me first," he said matter-of-factly. "Back when I was small multiple times."
"That was!" She sputtered. "That was different."
"How."
"Because you were..." She gestured vaguely at him with her free hand, still gripping his wrist with the other, still not pulling it away from her head. "You were little and round and!"
"And now?"
The question hung in the air, simple and light. He really wanted to know what word she’d use. Her face felt so hot she was surprised the UI didn’t warn her "big," she said flatly. "You’re big congratulations, mystery solved."
He considered this. Nodded once, like she’d given him useful crafting intel. "Thanks," Liam replied.
He threw his arms up in a massive, floor to sky stretch, his spine popping. The motion hiked his shirt up, showing the kind of solid, functional midsection that came from heavy lifting and zero ego. He let out a long, ragged breath as his arms fell back to his sides, looking around with a relaxed, slightly glazed expression. He was just trying to get the blood flowing, totally unaware that the casual display of sheer scale was hitting the crowd like a flashbang.
"Hungry," he announced, rubbing his stomach for emphasis.
Ellie stared at the bit of skin that vanished under his shirt. Her mind tried to catch up.
"...what?"
"I said I’m hungry." He looked down at her again with that same placid expression, red gaze, patient and unhurried. One ear flicked. "You okay? Your face is really red."
"It’s a SKIN CONDITION," she snapped, loud enough that three nearby players turned to look.
He turned toward the market stalls, already scanning for ingredients, already moved on, already thinking about whatever recipe his brain had queued up next.
Ellie stood rooted to the spot. Her hand drifted up to the top of her head, where his palm had been. The hair there was slightly mussed, and her ear still tingled.
She dropped her hand fast and shoved it into her pocket.
"A skin condition," she muttered to herself. "I told a six-foot-six albino wolf man that my blush is a skin condition," she lamented.
Liam turned around quickly, surprising Ellie, who nearly walked into him. He said, "Actually, I need to do something irl. Let me be right back." And when he went to log out, he couldn’t, he couldn’t find it. It was gone. There was no log out, you couldn’t log out.
"Uhhhh, I don’t know, but I can’t log out. Can you?"
Ellie scoffed and pulled up her menu like this was something simple, something she could fix in a second if Liam had just missed it. "You’re probably just not seeing it," she said, scrolling through her interface quickly. Her expression stayed casual for about two seconds before it shifted. Not panic, not yet, just confusion as her eyes slowed, then stopped. She scrolled again, more carefully this time, checking every section, every tab, every option that should have been there.
"...wait."
Liam didn’t move, just watched her.
Ellie kept scrolling, slower now, more deliberately, as if she expected it to appear if she just went carefully enough. It didn’t. The space where it should have been stayed empty, clean, as it had never existed in the first place.
"...it’s not here."
Liam frowned slightly and opened his own panel again, checking even though he already knew the answer.
Still nothing.
Around them, the event continued as if nothing were wrong. Fireworks burst overhead, players laughed, people cheered about rewards and items, and gold like this was still just a game they could leave whenever they wanted.
Ellie lowered her panel slowly and looked up at him, her expression no longer confused, not really. It had settled into something quieter, something heavier that hadn’t fully formed yet but was already there. "...I can’t log out," she said, voice small.
Liam didn’t respond right away because he couldn’t either.